A 33-year-old Naugatuck mom has been charged with risk of injury after leaving her 3-year-old son alone while she went to work, according to police.
Police responded to Hill Street Extension just before 3 p.m. on March 7 after a resident found a little boy in her driveway who was wearing no shirt or shoes and crying, police said.
Police spoke with a neighbor, viewed surveillance footage from the area and investigators determined that Latasha Ward, 33, had to get to work that day and left her 3-year-old son alone, knowing her 12-year-old daughter would be home soon, police said.
In the minutes he was alone, the little boy managed to get outside and wandered about a block away.
Police started to investigate when they received a call on March 7, 2:50 p.m. from the resident who found the boy.
As officers were investigating, they spoke with a 12-year-old girl who told them she was looking for her brother.
Police said the girl got home minutes after the mother left, noticed that the back door was open but no one was home, so she called her mother.
Ward told her daughter she left the little boy alone, police said, and the pre-teen frantically began searching for her brother.
Ward originally claimed she left her son with her 18-year old sister, but police said they learned that was not true.
Ward turned herself in to police at 11:15 p.m. on Monday. She was released on a written promise to appear and is due in court on Tuesday.
